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The War on Drugs: How President Nixon Tied Addiction to Crime

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By shifting public perception, and making us believe that drug users were dangerous and a threat to America, Nixon justified his actions.

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This is the first of a three-part series examining the history of public opinion on illegal drug use. This segment focuses on the 1960s and 1970s.
The war on drugs has been raging for decades. There is no sign of victory, or even detente. Although they're swamped with anti-drug messages, kids keep taking illegal drugs, and the drugs are getting more dangerous. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 1999 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System found that almost half (47%) of all high school students had used marijuana at least once. Ten percent had tried a form of cocaine.

Since 1969, the first year Gallup asked about illegal drug use, Americans have grown increasingly more concerned about the effects of drugs on young people. For instance, in 1969, 48% of Americans told Gallup that drug use was a serious problem in their community. In 1986, a majority of Americans, 56%, said that the government spent "too little" money fighting drugs. By 1995, 31% said drug use was a "crisis" and an additional 63% said it was "a serious problem" for the nation as a whole.

Why haven't the decades of anti-drug messages solved this problem? The blame tends to be spread across a variety of factors -- unsuccessful government programs, underfunded law enforcement, irresponsible media content -- but part of the problem has certainly been the inefficacy of drug prevention programs. Examining how Americans' attitudes have shifted during the 30+-year history of the drug prevention movement can help us see what the nation has done wrong, and what the nation is starting to do right.
The 1960s
The 1960s brought us tie-dye, sit-ins and fears of large-scale drug use. Hippies smoked marijuana, kids in ghettos pushed heroin, and Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor, urged the world to try LSD. In popular imagination, the 1960s were the heyday of illegal drug use -- but historical data indicate they probably weren't. In fact, surveys show that drug abuse was comparably rare, as was accurate information about the effects of illegal drugs. In a 1969 Gallup poll, only 4% of American adults said they had tried marijuana. Thirty-four percent said they didn't know the effects of marijuana, but 43% thought it was used by many or some high school kids. In 1972, 60% of Americans thought that marijuana was physically addictive (research shows that it is generally not physically addictive because regular users rarely show physical withdrawal symptoms, but marijuana can be psychologically addictive).

Alana Anderson, a child custody officer, graduated from college in 1969. "My generation was told that marijuana caused acne, blindness, and sterility," she said. "It was a scare tactic rather than an education tactic."

Teens of Anderson's generation were as observant as they are now. They noticed the difference between parental warnings and actual fact. So, many of them stopped believing anti-drug messages in general. "Scare tactics are a big disaster," said Gary De Blasio, executive director of Corner House Counseling Center for Adolescents and Young Adults in Princeton, N.J., "They don't work, especially if you use them on kids who have used drugs."
The 1970s
The scare tactics of the 1960s gave way to the contradictory messages of the late '70s and early '80s. Drugs became glamorous, without becoming better understood. In fact, the 1981 book The Truth About Drugs -- The Body, Mind and You by Gene Chill and John Duff asserted that cocaine wasn't addictive. The ranks of those who had tried illegal drugs grew -- in 1973, 12% of respondents to a Gallup poll said they had tried marijuana. That number had doubled by 1977.

As drug use increased, many Americans began to see it as a problem. In 1978, 66% of Americans said marijuana was a serious problem in the high schools or middle school in their area, and 35% said the same of hard drugs.

While more Americans were willing to admit they tried marijuana, acceptance of it was still slow in coming. In 1978, 21% said they would welcome increased acceptance of marijuana, while 72% said they would not. That percentage who would welcome an increased acceptance decreased to 13% three years later, and was just 11% when last asked in 1991. In 1978, 83% of Americans said it was very important that high school graduates with no plans for college "know the health hazards of smoking, use of alcohol, marijuana and other drugs."
Part two of this series will examine the 1980s and 1990s, and the anti-drug message that works.

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Decades of Drug Use: Data From the '60s and '70s

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The war on drugs has been raging for decades. There is no sign of victory, or even detente. Since 1969, the first year Gallup asked about illegal drug use, Americans have grown increasingly more concerned about the effects of drugs on young people -- with good reason.

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Late 1960s Recreational drug use rises in U.S.
In late 1960s recreational drug use becomes fashionable among young, white, middle class Americans. The social stigmatization previously associated with drugs lessens as their use becomes more mainstream. Drug use becomes representative of protest and social rebellion in the era's atmosphere of political unrest.

1970

Congress passes the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act This law consolidates previous drug laws and reduces penalties for marijuana possession. It also strengthens law enforcement by allowing police to conduct "no-knock" searches. This act includes the Controlled Substances Act, which establishes five categories ("schedules") for regulating drugs based on their medicinal value and potential for addiction.

Soldiers in Vietnam develop heroin addiction. Congressmen Robert Steele (R-CT) and Morgan Murphy (D-IL) release an explosive report on the growing heroin epidemic among U.S. servicemen in Vietnam.

1977 Media glamorizes cocaine use.
A May 30, 1977 Newsweek story on cocaine is later accused to have glamorized the drug's affects and underestimated its dangers. The story reports that "Among hostesses in the smart sets of Los Angeles and New York, a little cocaine, like Dom Perignon and Beluga caviar, is now de rigueur at dinners. Some partygivers pass it around along with the canapes on silver trays... the user experiences a feeling of potency, of confidence, of energy."

1979 Carlos Lehder purchases property on Norman's Cay.
Carlos Lehder, a key member of the alliance that would become the Medellin cartel, revolutionizes the cocaine trade with his purchase of 165 acres on the Bahamian island of Norman's Cay. Lehder is the first to use small planes for transporting the drug. He uses the island as a hub for planes to refuel between Colombia and the U.S.

Drug traffickers George Jung and Carlos Toro describe life on Norman's Cay.

1981-1982 Rise of the Medellin cartel.
The alliance between the Ochoa family, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha strengthens into what will become known as the"Medellin Cartel." The traffickers cooperate in the manufacturing, distribution and marketing of their cocaine. The kidnapping of Marta Ochoa by Colombian guerrillas consolidates the alliance. The traffickers form a group named MAS, a Spanish acronym for "Death to Kidnappers," announcing the imminent execution of any guerrilla kidnappers. Marta Ochoa is released without harm several months later.

Tranquilandia bust.
By tracking the illegal sale of massive amounts of ether to Colombia, the DEA and Colombian police discover Tranquilandia, a laboratory operation deep in the Colombian jungle. In the subsequent bust, law enforcement officials destroy 14 laboratory complexes, which contains 13.8 metric tons of cocaine, 7 airplanes, and 11,800 drums of chemicals, conservatively estimated at $1.2 billion. This bust confirms the consolidation of the Medellin cartel's manufacturing operation.

Retired DEA agent Bill Alden, Jorge Ochoa and Juan David Ochoa describe the effects of the Tranquilandia bust.

Assassination of the Colombian attorney general fuels the extradition controversy.
Colombian Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who had crusaded against the Medellin cartel, is assassinated by a gang of motorcycle thugs. President Belisario Betancur who opposed extradiction, announces "We will extradite Colombians." Carlos Lehder is the first to be put on the list. The crackdown forces the Ochoas, Escobar and Rodriguez Gacha to flee to Panama for several months. A few months later, Escobar is indicted for Lara Bonilla's murder and names the Ochoas and Rodriguez Gacha as material witnesses.

Jorge and Juan David Ochoa speak about Lara Bonilla's assassination and the resulting controversy over extradition.

The Drug War and Cold War collide.
The Washington Times runs a story which details DEA informant Barry Seal's successful infiltration into the Medellin cartel's operations in Panama. The story was leaked by Oliver North show the Nicaraguan Sandanistas' involvement in the drug trade. Ten days later, Carlos Lehder, Pablo Escobar, Jorge Ochoa and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha are indicted by a Miami federal grand jury based on evidence obtained by Seal. In february 1986, Seal is assassinated in Baton Rouge by gunmen hired by the cartel.

Read the interview with Fernando Arenas, a pilot for Carlos Lehder, who claims the Ochoas had Barry Seal killed.

"Bust of the Century" in Mexico.
The DEA and Mexican officials raid a large marijuana cultivation and processing complex in the Chihuahua desert owned by kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero. 7000 campesinos work at the complex, where between 5000-10,000 tons of high-grade marijuana worth $2.5 billion is found and destroyed. Time magazine calls this "the bust of the century" and it reveals the existence of Mexico's sophisticated marijuana smuggling industry.

1985 Crack explodes in New York
Crack, a potent form of smokeable cocaine developed in the early 1980s, begins to flourish in the New York region. A November 1985 New York Times cover story brings the drug to national attention. Crack is cheap and powerfully addictive and it devastates inner city neighborhoods.

Former DEA Agent Bob Stutman and former dealer "Paul" detail the impact of crack on New York.

Reagan signs The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986.

Reagan signs an enormous omnibus drug bill, which appropriates $1.7 billion to fight the drug crisis. $97 million is allocated to build new prisons, $200 million for drug education and $241 million for treatment. The bill's most consequential action is the creation of mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses. Possession of at least one kilogram of heroin or five kilograms of cocaine is punishable by at least ten years in prison. In response to the crack epidemic, the sale of five grams of the drug leads to a mandatory five-year sentence. Mandatory minimums become increasingly criticized over the years for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population, because of the differences in sentencing for crack vs. powder cocaine.

Murder of newspaperman outrages Colombian press.
Guillermo Cano Isaza, editor-in-chief of El Espectador is assassinated while driving home from work. Cano frequently wrote in favor of stiffer penalties for drug traffickers. His murder leads to a national outrage comparable to the assassination of Lara Bonilla, and a subsequent government crackdown on traffickers.

Jorge Ochoa is arrested in Colombia.
Ochoa is held in prison on the bull-smuggling charge for which he was extradited from Spain. Twenty-four hours later a gang of thugs arrive at the house of Juan Gomez Martinez, the editor of Medellin's daily newspaper El Colombiano. They present Martinez with a communique signed by "The Extraditables," which threatens execution of Colombian political leaders if Ochoa is extradited. On December 30, Ochoa is released under dubious legal circumstances. In January 1988, the murder of Colombian Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos is claimed by the Extraditables.

Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo is arrested in Mexico.
Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni leads a team of federal agents who arrest the drug lord in a residential suburb of Guadalajara. Gallardo is imprisoned on charges relating to Enrique Camarena's kidnapping and murder. His nephews, the Arellano-Felix brothers inherit part of his drug-trafficking empire.

1996 Ochoas released from prison.
Juan David and Jorge Luis Ochoa are released after serving five-year prison sentences for drug trafficking in July. Later, their younger brother Fabio Ochoa is also released.

Clinton delivers $1.3 billion in aid to help Colombia combat drug traffickers.
To assist Colombian President Andres Pastrana's $7.5 billion Plan Colombia, President Clinton delivers $1.3 billion in U.S. aid to fund 60 combat helicopters and training for the Colombian military, among other initiatives.

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Thirty Years Of America's Drug War | Drug Wars | FRONTLINE | PBS

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Late 1960s Recreational drug use rises in U.S. In late 1960s recreational drug use becomes fashionable among young, white, middle class Americans. The social stigmatization previously associated with drugs lessens as their use becomes more mainstream. Drug use becomes representative of protest and social rebellion in the era's atmosphere of political unrest.

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Florida During American Racial Segregation

On the night of April 4, 1968, Leon County Sheriff William P. Joyce and Florida Governor Claude Kirk stood in the streets of the state capital. Hours before, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

When the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) campus heard the news of the assassination of Dr. King, student protests broke out in the quads. Day turned into night as protests escalated into bottle throwing at passing cars and small car fires in the streets of Tallahassee. For the 10 days following the civil rights leader's death, riots broke out in over 100 American cities from San Francisco to New York, Chicago to New Orleans. Race relations in the United States had taken front and center in the public square.

This exhibit of images from the Florida Memory Photographic Collection illustrates a brief history of racism and the struggle for civil rights in Florida.

Governor Claude Kirk during Tallahassee riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4, 1968)

Image number: C800000-114

Left to Right: Sheriff William P. Joyce, Governor Kirk, unidentified highway patrolman.

Accompanying note: "On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, in Memphis, Tennessee. In the ten days following this tragic event, riots erupted in over one hundred American cities. Up until this time, social scientists believed all rioting occurred in response to local events or dissatisfaction. This assassination proved that black awareness extended further than home boundaries. The rioting afterwards 'was the first time that [Black] collective disorder was set off in response to a single, politically significant national event.'"

Nearly a century before the modern Civil Rights Movement, the Civil War pushed the nation into a new era ending legal human bondage. During the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War, laws were created to protect the rights of former slaves and for the first time, all African-Americans were legally permitted to own land, go to school, and run businesses.

Stevens school faculty (193-)

Image number: PR03569

Back, Left to Right: Polly Preston Simms, Rachel Williams, Arthur Jones, Irene Caldwell, Eloise Anderson, Winifred Harden, B.B. (Bernard) Crowder, Veresta Wilson (daughter of Henrietta).

Front: T.L. Sherman, Annie Ruth Henderson Jackson, Robert Stevens (son of Dr. William Stevens and Annie Kent Stevens), Mrs. Lucy Smith, Lasalle Lefall, principal; Sarah Bennett, Hazel King, Inez Stevens Jones, Minerva Laster, Genevieve Lowe

Reconstruction also marked the birth of the infamous white supremacy group, the Ku Klux Klan. After Reconstruction, Southern state legislators enacted laws segregating public spaces. Under "Jim Crow," as the laws came to be known, a segregated culture enforced racial discrimination and a tradition of legal and extra-legal violence emerged that terrorized African-Americans throughout the South.

In the decades following the Civil War, racism became firmly fixed in American culture. Literature and the new form of popular entertainment, films, celebrated the "Lost Cause" of the Confederacy and the triumph of white culture. One example was the hugely successful and innovative 1915 Hollywood film, Birth of a Nation, which was based on a best-selling novel that romanticized the origins of the KKK. Black-face minstrel shows and black humor postcards showing cut-and-pasted African-American babies in the mouths of alligators and other grotesque depictions were common.

In the first half of the century, Florida led the nation with the highest number of lynchings per capita. Mobs of unmasked white men targeted and attacked Florida's Black communities like Ocoee on November 2, 1920, and Rosewood in January of 1923. Today it's hard to understand "the feeling," as W. J. Cash wrote in The Mind of the South, "which, in time of stress, would seize control of the best almost as surely as the sorriest cracker."

Ruins of a burned African-American home: Rosewood (January 4, 1923)

Image number: RC12408

Accompanying note: "The ruins of the house near Rosewood in which 20 armed negroes fought off a band of white men searching for a negro who, it is said, had attacked a white woman."

The deliberate burning of cabins and a church wiped out the African-American quarter of Rosewood as the inhabitants escaped in to the woods.

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Racism and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Florida

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On the night of April 4, 1968, Leon County Sheriff William P. Joyce and Florida Governor Claude Kirk stood in the streets of the state capital. Hours before, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Flip Schulke (June 24, 1930, Cornish, New Hampshire; died: May 15, 2008, West Palm Beach, Florida) documented everyday life in the Florida Keys during the 1970s for the US Documerica Project (1971-1977) . A teacher at the University of Missouri's Columbia School of Journalism, Schulke was aided in his mission by several students.

For the Documerica Project (1971-1977), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems, EPA activities, and everyday life in the 1970s.

These photos are terrific, especially the ones of retirees at play:

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Life in The Florida Keys During The 1970s - Flashbak

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Flip Schulke (June 24, 1930, Cornish, New Hampshire; died: May 15, 2008, West Palm Beach, Florida) documented everyday life in the Florida Keys during the 1970s for the US Documerica Project (1971-1977) . A teacher at the University of Missouri's Columbia School of Journalism, Schulke was aided in his mission by several students.

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Jack Gantos on his memoir "Hole in My Life"

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http://www.jackgantos.com/books/hole-in-my-life

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n the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them.